Despite a threatening letter last week from an assistant secretary of the federal Department of Education, the executive director of the State Board of Education is expressing confidence that the state will reach an agreement over standardized testing next spring to avoid tens of millions of dollars in federal penalties.
“I remain optimistic we can resolve this,” Karen Stapf Walters said on Friday. “They feel the same.”
Stapf Walters and State Board President Michael Kirst said they doubted the federal government They – specifically Assistant Secretary Deborah Delisle – haven’t appeared equally sanguine, at least publicly. In her letter to state officials, which was released last week, Delisle said California would face substantial sanctions if it follows a new state law and fails to test every student in reading and math in grades 3 though 8 and grade 11 next year. Delisle said the state Department of Education stands to lose federal money used to administer Title I funding for disadvantaged students and to administer federally required tests. That’s estimated to be about $45 million, though the state Department of Education would not confirm that amount. And Delisle escalated the conflict by suggesting that some of the $3.5 billion that districts receive in Title I money for services for low-income and disabled students could be in jeopardy as well.
A new report by the Community Rights Campaign shows that police employed by Los Angeles Unified Shool Dstrict issued dramatically fewer citations to students for truancy and substantially fewer citations overall this past school year compared with the year before. However, based on enrollment, African American and Latino students were ... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit the Edsource Toda
Many of us in the business community supported Governor Jerry Brown’s proposal to overhaul the state’s antiquated and cumbersome school funding system and replace it with the Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF). We have long advocated for a system with greater transparency, accountability and coherence that would invest in the ... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit the Edsource Today websi